The Lie We All Believe About Everyone Else
All of us feel like we’re winging it through life. We feel we don’t have it together, but everyone else does.
We look at other people, and especially people we look up to, like creators, productivity gurus, spiritual leaders, and believe they have it all together. We see ourselves as incompetent, weak, unsure in life, or just winging it.
The fact is, we’re all limited human beings just winging it to an extent. As Oliver Burkeman wrote in his book “Four Thousand Weeks,”
“I sometimes think of my journey through adulthood to date as one of incrementally discovering the truth that there is no institution, no walk of life, in which everyone isn’t just winging it all the time.”
The Illusion in the Room
‘Pluralistic ignorance’ is the term that researchers use for what happens when we think everyone else has it together. It’s a well-researched social psychology phenomenon. We see others compose their interiors while living inside our own anxious interior.
As a result, we draw the wrong conclusion that everyone else has it together except us. A classic example is when a professor asks if anyone has questions.
Nobody raises a hand, and even if you don’t understand something and do have a question, you assume everyone else understood, but they’re all thinking the same thing you are. The silence is a mutual conclusion pretending to be confidence. We assume everyone else has it together, and we’re the only one who feels like we’re winging it.
Success Doesn’t Fix It
Imposter syndrome is nearly universal. This belief shows itself even when we’re successful. It’s the persistent feeling that you’re a fraud and will eventually be exposed.
This affects an estimated 70-80% of people at some point in their lives. The gap between how people present and how they feel is one of the most consistent findings in social psychology.
You’re not unusual for feeling like you’re winging it. You’re the norm.
Knowing that changes everything.
When Winging It Becomes a Strategy, Not a Weakness
So what do we do with all of this? We need to reframe, embrace the adventure of not knowing.
The antidote isn’t faking more confidence. It’s accepting that uncertainty is the actual condition of being alive and doing meaningful work. As Anne-Laure Le Cunff wrote in Tiny Experiments,
“Ultimately, living a generative life is about embracing the adventure of not knowing where your path will lead while trusting that you’ll find fulfillment along the way.”
Granted, sometimes the tactic of fake it till you make it is necessary and productive, where you act as though you have more confidence than you feel.
It’s OK not to be perfect. Winging it stops being a shameful secret and becomes an honest, strategic choice. While acknowleging our limitations and feelings, we go forward with living our lives the best we can.
“Embrace imperfection. You cannot excel at everything simultaneously. Long-term excellence comes not from maintaining perfect balance but from prioritizing what is most important at any given moment.” — Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Tiny Experiments
It’s okay to be a flawed, finite you and still generously produce and submit your work to benefit others. It’s not about whether it will be successful. It’s not about whether it’s perfect.
It’s about our motivation and intention for our life and work to be a gift to others.
What to Do With All of This
So here’s what I’d invite you to do. The next time you catch yourself thinking “everyone else has it more together than me,” name it. Say out loud: that’s pluralistic ignorance. Not to dismiss the feeling, but to see it for what it is — a very human brain pattern, not an accurate reading of reality.
You don’t need to have it all figured out to show up and do meaningful work. Nobody does.
The goal was never certainty. It was always just showing up anyway.
Note: I wrote this blog post myself using my own words and thoughts for the initial draft. I used AI only to suggest headlines, section headings, images and text improvements.
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